Besides being used in mineral identification, heavy placer minerals can also find application in trace element determination for individual minerals, thus furnishing valuable information for geochemical exploration and hence extend ing geochemical sampling to the field of heavy minerals. In association with major elements, there exist in heavy placer minerals a variety of impurity elements whose types, contents and proportions must have been governed by the geological environment during the formation of the minerals. A study of these elements might throw light on the formation temperature of the miner als, types -of rocks and ore deposits as well as ore potentiality of intrusive bodies. This paper gives a general description of the relationship between the variations in trace elements of more than ten heavy placer minerals and the conditions of geology, rocks and ore deposits, and deals with the possibility of utilizing these data in geochemical prospecting.